Category Archives: Events

Write Better Together: an inside look at a new generation of social networks and websites that empower writers

A talk by Molly Barton ’00

Ms. Barton is teaching the senior seminar for Wesleyan’s Writing Certificate this spring. Formerly the Global Digital Director at Penguin Random House, she founded a start-up inside Penguin called Book Country, “the most supportive writing and publishing community on the web” – where writers can get feedback on their manuscripts, and if they desire, publish them as e-books. Barton left Penguin in February to work more closely with the NYC tech and start-up community. She is working on a number of undisclosed digital initiatives with major media companies, and serving as strategic advisor to publishing related start-ups in New York City and Silicon Valley.

For more information and to rsvp if you would like to attend, contact libfriends[at]wesleyan[dot]edu.

Stop the presses: MARY GAITSKILL is returning to campus. If, like me, you missed her at the Narrative Conference back in November, this is our chance to right our grievous wrong. Kim-Frank FellowSarah Chrystler ’13/GRAD writes in with the specifics:

Celebrated author Mary Gaitskillwill read from her upcoming work on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2014 at 8:00 p.m. in Wesleyan University’s, Russell House, 350 High Street, Middletown, CT. Earlier that day, at 4:15 p.m., Mary Gaitskill will hold a Q&A session in Allbritton 311.

Mary Gaitskill is the author of the novel Veronica, a finalist for the 2005 National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and Los Angeles Times Book Award. Her other books include Two Girls, Fat and Thin and the story collections Bad Behavior, Because They Wanted To, and Don’t Cry. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, and The Best American Short Stories, and she has received a Guggenheim Fellowship from the Cullman Center at the New York Public Library.

For more information, please call 860.685.3448 or click here. For program information contact Anne Greene at agreene[at]wesleyan[dot]edu or 860.685.3604.

Visiting professor and journalist Tracie McMillan is the author of the New York Times bestseller, The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee’s, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table. Mixing immersive reporting, undercover investigative techniques and “moving first-person narrative” (Wall Street Journal), McMillan’s book argues for thinking of fresh, healthy food as a public and social good—a stance that inspired The New York Times to call her “a voice the food world needs” and Rush Limbaugh to single her out as an “overeducated” “authorette” and “threat to liberty.” She’ll be speaking on her work, her book, and food as a social justice issue.

Reverend Jason Lyndon from the Boston-based prison reform Black and Pink is coming to Wesleyan! Reverend Jason will be leading a discussion about the current state of the prison system in America at 5’oclock, where he’ll give an overview of America’s problem with mass incarceration. At 6 o’clock, he’ll run a “letter writing session,” where we’ll write notes to incarcerated folks who identify as LGBTQ.